Hydrablog

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/opinion/01winfrey.html
November 1, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
A Final Verdict on the Presidential Salute
By CAREY WINFREY [oped] [I didn’t archive much on the flap] [Obama visited Dover last week] [it struck me as pretty dignified on balance] [bit overly political, relative to previous administration’s use fo solider as photo ops] [but following day Ms. Cheney said some pretty ridiculous things—made wildely ridiculous given her own fathers behavior relative to Dover or other ways to support the fallen and given his 5 Vietnam deferments] [I have no problem with deferments from Vietnam; just those who happily send others to war over anything but went out of their way to serve] [*]
FOR nearly three decades, I’ve felt conflicted about presidential salutes. After all, my United States Marine Corps instructors drilled into me the idea that “you never salute without a cover” which, in civilian, meant without a hat.
My fellow Marines and I were also informed, in no uncertain terms, that we weren’t to salute out of uniform. (I don’t think that presidential blue suits, white shirts and red ties quite qualify.) So whenever I saw a president stepping off a helicopter and bringing hand to brow, my drill instructor’s unambiguous words came back to me with much of their original force.
Then there were the salutes themselves, which ranged from halfhearted to jaunty. None of them fulfilled the characteristically succinct prescription that Capt. Jack O’Donnell of the Marine Corps delivered, in 1963, to my platoon of freshly minted second lieutenants at basic school in Quantico, Va.: “Your salute,” he pronounced, “must be impeccable,” by which we took him to mean like his: a straight line running from elbow to fingertips, the fingers and thumb forming a seamless whole, the arm brought swiftly to the brim of the cap, no palm showing, and then lowered smartly to the side.
Presidents have long been saluted, but they began returning salutes relatively recently. Ronald Reagan was thought to be the first, in 1981. He had sought advice on the matter from Gen. Robert Barrow, commandant of the Marine Corps. According to John Kline, then Mr. Reagan’s military aide and today a member of Congress from Minnesota, General Barrow told the president that as commander in chief he could salute anybody he wished. And so it began.
Mr. Reagan’s successors continued the practice, and I continued to be conflicted — believing that when it comes to salutes (and one or two other matters), presidents deserved to be cut some slack, but also feeling a little uneasy about the whole thing.
My ambivalence came to an end last week, when I saw a videotape of the president’s midnight trip to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where he had participated, very early that morning, in the “dignified transfer” of 15 Army soldiers and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents killed that week in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama stood ramrod straight and saluted as six soldiers carried the coffin bearing the body of Sgt. Dale Griffin of Indiana off a C-17 transport aircraft and into a waiting van. His salute, it struck me, was impeccable in every way. [sort of simple and sweet] [is simple ways, the Obama salute was impeccable] [I was it for 2 seconds: it struck me immediately as dignified (whatever else it may have been)] [I’ve long decried the “haters” in America’s system] [there were Bush haters, Clinton haters, and now Obama haters] [it’s beyond rational] [for me, when Bush responded to 9/11 (at least most of the early stuff we then knew about) I strongly supported him and in 2 post-9/11 USFP books wrote flattering things about the administration’s response] [I became disillusioned toward the end due to what struck me as incessant lying over trivial things and incredible arrogance that was unnecessary] [but I never retracted the postivie observations made and will never] [until late 2002-early 2003, I admired the way President (former) Bush stood up and rallied nation-world] [*]
Carey Winfrey is the editor of Smithsonian magazine.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company